Breathe into Me
by Reige
Summary: The supernatural was something unbelieving and far-fetched and he continued on with that belief, until one day a boy with orange hair changed his world... and ruined him. Reincarnated!Kaien fic! Rated T for now, rating may go up.
1. distant waves

**A/N:** I'm not gonna really bother with telling you that this could possibly be the last act of rewriting the whole thing, because it may as well be not. As always, this fic needed to be gone over and fixed up a bit to make it more... agreeable with me. Sometimes I'm just not satisfied with what I've done so far in the fic, it just leaves me hanging and twisted. And the other reason because of the need to rewrite is most likely because of the revelations with Ichigo's true heritage. I still got all the time in the world to catch up to that time line and thus a lot of things to explore in the Bleach universe. I pray that this will be the last time I do a rewrite, but I'm not keeping my hopes up. Sorry for you followers that are undoubtedly groaning and cursing my very pen name, but it was coming none the less. Thank you once more, and, I hope, you enjoy what I have for you. Read and review!

_**p.s**. _There is sooo much that I changed in this story, it was for the best. Please don't hate me!

**Disclaimer:_ The BLEACH universe and all it's contents and plots belong only to Tite-sensei!_**

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___**sleeping**_

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In the fast-approaching nightfall on the eastern shores of the Florida beaches, there inside a building was a quaint-looking apartment. A meeting was being held between two individuals. It wasn't a long, lengthy conversation, it was more along the lines of someone just not bothering to beat around the bush.

"We're moving in with your grandpa Daichii," announced Shizune Neverwinter.

There was a pregnant pause in the suddenly quiet room.

"We're moving to Japan?"

The dark-haired woman squinted her eyes at the tone of the voice directed at her. Alright, it was true, people said she sucked bad when it comes to unleashing announcements that left people speechless. Practically dropping the bomb on them without warning. Still, the older woman felt irked by the person sitting across from her, it would have been nice if the one person she loved with all her heart didn't react... like... like that!

All jaw-dropped and bug-eyed.

I should probably introduce myself to you, huh?

The name's Kaine Neverwinter, the kid that looked stupid with his fork still in mid-air and having not noticed his chicken had fallen back into the plate. Too astonished with the constant echo of Shizune's voice telling him over and over that they were leaving Florida and moving into some country he didn't like all that much.

The only time I actually went to Japan was to visit my grandfather, however, it made me dislike being over there even more. A story for another time, I suppose...

"Yes," she confirmed with a scowl on her face. "Starting next month, we'll be moving somewhere outside of Tokyo."

"But," I began protest. "This is way too sudden! I, I mean, what about school and—"

"Don't argue with me, brat," Shizune snapped at me. "Despite what you think, I have some sense to begin transfer papers and set appointments with the school council to decide what they'll do with you."

It was pointless to ask about friends. Friends weren't a good enough excuse to make Shizune halt all her plans about moving away from home. And besides, I didn't have a lot of friends, and the few I did have weren't really friends. Rather, they were just a bunch of acquaintances that shared some common interest of topics.

Thinking up another excuse of not to go to Japan, I came up with another one rather quickly. It was something that I thought was reasonable enough to put an end to the mad woman's thinking, it was an old argument I could never let go of easily.

"We can't go live with grandpa! He's out to get me!"

"Excuse me?" she demanded, shooting to her feet and rolling off her alpha female vibes on me. "That is your loving grandfather, show some respect for your elders!"

"He hates me, mom! He's always coming up with these excuses that sound almost true and ends up kicking my ass and feeling justified about it!"

"That is not true..."

"It is!" I insisted.

"Kaine!" Shizune gave a heavy sigh and shakes her head at me, treating me like a tiny child once again. I always hated when she did that, telling me that I'm becoming childish and that my words no longer matter to her. "Whether you like it or not, we're moving! And that's final!"

Why did I even bother?

With a pathetic excuse, I pulled away from the dinner table and headed towards my room. My room had an open view of the ocean and I opened the window a little to let in the cool breeze. I flopped down on the bed and listened to both the sounds of Shizune handling the plates and the waves climbing and descending from the beaches.

I was going to miss this place, it was where I was born and raised. This place left a lot of memories for me to be happy about...

But it left so many scars than I cared to count.

In a matter of time my mind grew weak and the world went dark all around, welcoming me to sleep.

**Three weeks later...**

As promised, the apartment was left bare while everything was packed up in various boxes and luggage. The movers drove all the way to the airport to deliver the cargo into one of the planes Shizune and grandpa Daichii had worked out to take on the flight to the east. Meanwhile, there was a going-away party that kept her and me occupied.

My "friends" joked about the school uniforms I was obviously going to be forced to wear and the topic soon turned to what were the chances I was likely to have in looking up a girl's too-short skirt. Okay, I wasn't too keen on moving, but I suppose there was some reasons I could be optimistic about moving to Japan. Japan was listed third place as the most perverted country in the world, that was something I was looking forward to investigating.

"Hey," someone said. "Does that mean you'll have another doctor over there, too?"

Whatever humor I had in me left the moment he said those words. Words that I desperately wished weren't up for discussion, even if it had been many years since... the incident.

"Dude, shut up!" someone else hissed, giving the person a harsh smack on the arm.

I quickly excused myself and left before I was once again subjected into another round of pitiful stares and of words that just sounded too hollow to my ears. I hated the way their eyes watched me, knowing and remembering things I wanted to burn and stay dead—

_'Nothing stays dead forever,'_ a familiar voice in my head hissed at me.

I made for my room, finding the whole apartment suddenly full and crowded with overbearing people that were exposed to my vulnerability. Soon as I was in my room, I shut the door a little harsher than I intended and stood there for a moment.

I was breathless. It was like I had taken a long run around the park for miles nonstop.

I sometimes remember why I don't have any friends... why I prefer isolation.

I was better off alone. Always.

My alone time in my room was disturbed from a small tapping on the other side of the door. I leaned against the door, kept silent and wished whoever it was would go away and leave me alone. I didn't feel like joining the merry-making party any time soon.

"Kaine?" I closed my eyes and recognized Shizune's voice. "Are you alright in there?"

I didn't want to answer, but then she would force herself inside to see for herself. "I'm fine."

"You didn't look too good."

"I'm just tired," I said lamely.

"... Are you taking your medicine?"

I didn't answer her, feeling my insides grow colder than glaciers in the Antarctica region that it took me a moment to realize I had been holding my breath.

"I meant what I said, leaving all this behind us." Shizune said. "This was hard for us, harder for you, especially. And I... I just wanted to make things go right."

_'It won't change the fact that—'_

"Try to make the best of it." I blinked out of my thoughts and realized she was leaving me alone.

She always left me alone when we talked about that.

Parents, supposedly, were the ones that took away their child's pain and burden... but what I had was beyond her help.

And like she said, I had to make the best of it.

"Goodbye, Miami," I muttered before sinking down on my bed, easily ignoring the noise outside my door and instead focused on the familiar waves coming from my open window.

Things were going to be different starting tomorrow and even though I didn't like this plan, I was going to try and put some effort into it. I just hoped grandpa Daichii didn't try anything that could possibly land me in juvenile hall, I wouldn't want to start out like that on my first few days in my new home.


	2. shades of red

_**A/N:** _Hi. Yeah, no younger sister or cousin accompanying Kaine and Shizune. You can also note the change of point of view, I got so used to first person that I sometimes mess up on second. Third is just not my forte. d I loved them (I won't say which but I will reveal as time passes), and I also want to make things less obvious in this story. I'm trying something else entirely, something dark and mysterious, somethiI'm trying to make this story more... in a sense, human. I had lot of inspirations, thanks to Youtube videos I found by chance anng I can hopefully accomplish with some effort. I want hold you back any longer, just remember to read and review. Thank you!

**_Disclaimer: The BLEACH universe and all it's contents and plots belong only to Tite-sensei!_**

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___**in the beginning**_

___**we were**_

___**disconnected**_

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Airports were long, boring, and awful.

It was a total of nearly eight hours in three different airports that nearly drove me up the wall. From Miami, to Atlantic, and a long flight until Tokyo. My only way to cope with the boredom was the movies playing, some of which I hadn't had the chance to watch in the local cinemas because of class, work, and hanging out at the beach, it was a win-win for me.

Once outside the airport, Shizune ordered me to wait on the sidewalk for chance that grandpa Daichii would spot me in the crowd while she went on ahead to get us both some snacks_. _So I stood there and waited like I was told to, watching the crowd with detachment as they went on with their boring lives. Businessmen and women traveling the world, people taking a tour in the country, people on vacation, people moving in to live in foreign land_—_

___**SCREEECH!**_

I barely knew what happened until afterward. One minute I was standing near the edge of the curb and then the next, nearly half of my lower body was underneath a car. Fortunately, I wasn't in any sort of danger, just knocked off my feet and away from the tires. Unfortunately, it scared the daylight out of the civilians that scrambled out of the way, shrieking when they saw a body pinned under the car.

"What the hell?!" I demanded in angry shock, still feeling my heart nearly giving out from the scare. "Watch where you're driving you asshole!"

Seconds later, the car door opened and I was ready to give the guy the biggest tongue-lashing of his life... But that idea fell short when I saw who it was.

"Oh," an elderly man with dark graying hair looked down at me with surprise: grandpa Daichii. "Are you alright?"

Was he for real?!

"Do I look alright to you?!" I snapped at him

"Oh my God!" I heard Shizune's shrill voice, she hurried over to us as I crawled my way out from under the taxi. "Are you alright?!"

"No! I'm not okay!" I pointed an accusing finger at him. "He almost killed me!"

"What?" Shizune turned to her father.

"I was standing right here and then he tried to run me over with his stupid car!"

I hoped that this was enough evidence against grandpa Daichii to finally open her eyes and see the man her father truly was; a homicidal maniac bent on destroying my life.

"Oh, I forgot to wear my contact lenses. I didn't see you there, sorry." grandpa Daichii offered a pat on my shoulder.

"Dad, you really should let someone drive," Shizune scolded the elder man and I stared at her with shock that she easily put the incident behind her like it was yesterday's trash.

Good God, how much would it take for the woman to see the evil that was hiding behind the facade of an innocent-looking elderly man?

"Lets get your things in the trunk, the mover have set up your furniture at the house." grandpa Daichii said as we gathered our luggage from under the car and into the open trunk.

Once finished, I opened the back seat of the car seeing as grandpa Daichii would take the passenger seat, but I nearly slammed it shut when a big, black, wolf-like dog bounded up and barked viciously in my face. I jumped away from the car, staring at the blue eyes that glared at me like I had taken away its chew toy and wanted to rip my throat out in vengeance.

"What are you standing around there for?" the older man demands when he saw me not joining them in the car. "Don't waste anymore time, lets go!"

"That dog looks like it wants to bite my face off," I growled.

"Don't mind ol' Hokatsu, now get in."

Warily, I crept closer and thankfully the dog backed away, however it still growled at me. I stayed at the edge of my seat, not bothering to buckle up in case I had to jump out of the car if the damn dog tried to attack me. It took nearly half an hour for the taxi to get past the traffic and into the busy highways, I had vague memories about the buildings and streets I've seen on the previous times I had visited grandpa Daichii. It wasn't long when the highway became small roads and the area looked more like a neighborhood, mine and Shizune's new home wasn't that far away.

The car slowed down somewhat and I saw a huge building, I could only easily assume what it was.

"See that?" grandpa Daichii spoke up as he pointed at the building. "Say hello to your new school: Karakura High. The semester will be starting in two weeks, that's enough time to gather your supplies."

I wasn't impressed.

We drove by the school and I soon recognized the streets in no time, grandpa Daichii most likely wanted me to know that the school wasn't that far from the house.

The house. The house was more of a traditional machiya (townhouse) rather than the modern kind, the neighborhood where the old man lived was actually one of those places people didn't want torn down just because time was moving ahead. The house was hundreds of years old but grandpa Daichii had made sure to keep up to date with it so it wouldn't fall apart.

There was decorative sliding screen doors, tatami mats, ceramic tile roofs, and a fabric at the entrance of the house that was a sign for grandpa's work. But there were modern things like beds, flat screen televisions, kitchen tables and counters, and somewhere in the back of the house was an art studio.

Grandpa Daichii was an excellent artist, he could practically draw anything; from old school Japanese art to the casual self portraits, but usually for a high price. However the cost, people continued to go to him and sometimes agents would ask him to show off his work in the next art gala that rolled by in town. The old man, annoying as he was, made a good living for himself.

"Oi!" I snapped out of my thoughts as someone knocked at my window, the taxi was parked outside the house. "Get your lazy butt out of there and help!"

Seeing as I was about to most likely snap something at him, grandpa Daichii whistled and Hokatsu barked loudly in my ear, it was so close I could feel the hot breath brushing against my open neck. I scrambled to get the handle of the door and flew out of the vehicle as soon as it opened, the black dog followed behind me and joined his owner's side. The decrepit old man merely laughed at my visibly shaken figure, not sorry at all with his actions.

"Dammit, old man...!" I growled at him but stopped when Hokatsu barked at me, standing protectively in front of grandpa Daichii.

"Kaine, stop playing with the dog and help with the luggage!" Shizune scolded me as she brushed past the fabric and into the house. "This isn't exactly light-packed!"

"I'm not playing with the damn dog! Grandpa made it try and kill me!" I said.

"Help. Now!" was her reply.

With an aggravated growl, I did as I was told and gathered our things from the trunk before heading inside to join her what would most likely be the work of moving our furniture to her (and grandpa Daichii's) liking. Some of the movers were inside the house, probably sticking around to help and maybe put in extra cash in their wallets for their services.

I set aside mine and Shizune's luggage so I could the men. It took me seconds to wonder about one important thing; where was I going to stay?

"Hey, where am I suppose to sleep?"

Always when we stayed over here, I would sleep in the same room with mom because grandpa Daichii was stingy with his rooms, but it was pretty obvious that this place was permanent until I was old enough to live on my own... or until the old geezer kicked me out first. I wanted my own privacy as much as Shizune, I really didn't want to stay up late because she was working hours on her mask.

"Here, I'll show you." grandpa Daichii said as he walked through the kitchen and up the stairs. I followed after him but kept my distance, the dog was trailing close after him.

The halls weren't that narrow, but they did give off that claustrophobic feeling, so I focused on the older mans back. We reached the end of the hallway, the last door and I briefly wondered if I should be worried that I was the farthest away from everybody else. Grandpa Daichii had a room downstairs so he could be closer to his art studio when a dream inspires him to paint something.

My room was... pretty big. Even with my bed, desks, drawers and few personal items the place would still have enough room for me to walk freely around in.

"This used to the old storage room where I left my half finished work in. I think I might have left some of them here but I didn't get the chance to look so be a pal and look for them when you can, alright?"

"Sure," I murmured.

We headed back downstairs to help with the moving. Well, I helped with the moving. Granpda Daichii just supervised from a safe distance. There was some small talk between the movers and I used the opportunity to brush up on my Japanese, I kinda got laughed at for saying something weird and my accent was atrocious, but it was an effort. Furniture were moved to open spots, belongings placed inside vacant rooms, and fragile items taken care of with gentle ease.

_"Alright, that's about it!"_ a mover said as he looked around to do a quick head count of his men.

_"Thank you, I'll be sure to send a check to your company with the extra tips."_ grandpa Daichii tells them.

I watched the older man talk with the movers, the men didn't look all that friendly at first but a few minutes with grandpa Daichii and suddenly they were easy friends. The old man had that sort of effect on practically everyone he came across... too bad he sucked at being friends with his own grandchild.

"Kaine?" Shizune called from the kitchen. "Can you help with dishes?"

"Coming!"

* * *

It took awhile but I was finally able to pull away from the tedious work of dishware setting and focused on rearranging the room until I thought it looked right to my liking. Putting away my clothes was much of a hassle as it was putting away Shizune's plates and cups, but it was better to do the work now than having to do it later.

Setting up my own television screen and game consoles proved to be a bit of a challenge but thankfully grandpa Daichii had thought ahead to buy outlets that could take North America products. As I had predicted, all my belongings were in place and the room still had open space for me to probably set up a couch for my big screen. I didn't have the money for it now, but eventually, when I thought it necessary, I would probably buy a couch set.

While fixing the bed sheets on my mattress, I took notice of the jackets and sweaters I had plucked out of my duffel bag. Oh, right, where was the closet? Those damn things pretty much blended with the wall, I had to look carefully for handles.

"Ah!" I said when I saw a handle. "Here we go."

It slides open with ease, revealing a dark space with a wooden pole hanging almost over my head. It was so dark inside the closet that I almost missed the object lying against the back wall of the closet. I could have easily mistook it as some wide wooden plank but the string nailed on its back made me think back at grandpa Daichii's request on the recovery of his artwork.

"Better give this to him, then." I muttered to myself as I crouched down and grabbed the frame.

A bit curious at what the drawing could be, I flipped it around to take a good look—

___Can't stop the bleeding—_

___It wasn't me!_

___Stop it! Stop hurting me!_

___I'M NOT LYING!_

I jumped when a loud growl reached my ears. Breaking out of the trance I suddenly realized I'm still crouched on the floor and holding a blotchy red picture that only weird people of odd artistic taste would view as perfection. My breathing, I noticed, was deep and suffocating, like someone had been holding my breath. Hokatsu was standing at the doorway, looking at me with wary eyes, as though he didn't know what to do with the very disturbed stranger.

"Shouldn't you be in bed?" I said to the dog with irritation clearly heard in my tone.

The black dog stood there a moment longer with impenetrable eyes looking at me before he decided to finally leave me alone. I watched the dog turn away and walk down the hallway to find his bed. Waiting after a few seconds I let out a shaky breathe and dropped the frame away from me, letting my long fingers brush through my dark hair.

_'Calm down.'_ I told myself. _'It's just a picture. It's not going to hurt you. Nothing can hurt you unless you want them to.'_

I stayed on the floor for a long while, slowly collecting myself and repeating the mantra until strength returned to my legs. Not feeling particularly motivated with finishing on setting up my room, I turned off the lights and crawled under the bed, hoping against hope that my mind wouldn't linger on unpleasant thoughts. Like always, my brain liked to contradict me at every turn.


End file.
